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REPORT SHOWS SUBSIDIES TO FOSSIL FUELS IS 19X GREATER THAN BIOFUELS
Jun. 27, 2012
Source: The Brock Report
Midway through the first year since the blenders' credit for ethanol and the biodiesel credit expired, it is interesting to ponder some recently released data about energy subsidies. At the annual meeting of the G20 countries held in Mexico, a report from Oil Change International confirmed failure on the part of G20 nations to reduce oil subsidies as they had committed to do in 2009.
In fact, oil subsidies are expected to more than double by 2020 to an estimated $660 billion, compared with 2010's $312 billion, according to the International Energy Agency. Rather than cutting subsidies, G20 countries have simply been changing the definition of a subsidy or letting subsidies go undocumented.
The number of undocumented subsidies has tripled between 2010 and 2011 for about a third of the G20. Third-party subsidy estimates continue to be much higher than the numbers reported by G20 governments.
The IEA reports that in 2010, world governments spent six times as much on subsidizing the production and consumption of fossil fuels as they did on renewable energy, and 19 times what they spent on biofuels.
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